From his early experiences as a conductor to the final performances of his operas, Richard Strauss collaborated with the most accomplished artists in the German-speaking theater. These associations set standards for productions of his stage works which were essential for their short- and long-term success. Important collaborators included the directors Max Reinhardt and Rudolf Hartmann, choreographers Heinrich Kröller and the duo of Pino and Pia Mlakar, and designers Alfred Roller and Ludwig Sievert. These and other partnerships flourished in the cities which Strauss favored for his premieres: Dresden, Munich, and Vienna. Under the auspices of the Salzburg Festival, Strauss and his stage collaborators established a vital legacy of production that continues into the present.

Some producers are more than presenters of a show, they are involved as artistic directors or as actor managers. George Edwardes combined the skills of artistic director and impresario. Robert Courtneidge, a contemporary of Edwardes, was another producer director in London, and he exercised additional skill as an actor manager. A stage director may appear in the programme as ‘stage manager’ or ‘stage producer’. American producer Jacob Shubert, always known as J.J., enjoyed stage directing and was sometimes named as sole director, as he was for Kálmán’s Her Soldier Boy (1916), and Countess Maritza (1926). Those responsible for the musical direction and conducting of English versions of continental European operetta in London and New York were often involved in more than coaching singers and conducting. They were expected to make arrangements of the music when necessary and were often asked to compose songs for interpolation into the operetta. The chapter also includes consideration of singers, dance directors and designers.

It was, above all, the romantic melodies and rich harmonic textures of operetta that attracted British and American audiences. The music of operetta occupied a number of positions between popular musical theatre and opera. Dance rhythms formed an important part of the style of every operetta composer. American influence on German operetta had its source in the music-making of African Americans in the period just before the jazz craze of the 1920s. There was delight in mixing musical styles, and it is common to find Austro-German, Hungarian, and American styles in the same piece. While operettas with modern themes were increasingly characterized by syncopated rhythms in the 1920s, those with exotic themes were spiced up with augmented intervals, modal harmony, and ostinato rhythms. Most operetta composers in Vienna and Berlin were happy to have the help of orchestrators. Orchestrators were also on hand for New York productions.